


Sand Dunes

by White_Rabbits_Clock



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe-Magic, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Centaur!Happy, Centaurs, F/F, F/M, Faun!Pepper, Faun!Peter, Fauns & Satyrs, Gen, He's the Winter Wind in this one, I forgot about Rhodey sorry, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Magic, Multi, OKAY ENOUGH TAGS, Road Trips, Team Iron Man, There's a lot of weird stuff going on so lets get started, as much as we can be in an AU, do not copy to another site, not sorry, the Ravagers are in this one but it's not important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2020-06-26 09:33:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19765447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Rabbits_Clock/pseuds/White_Rabbits_Clock
Summary: Thanos, a Demon from the North, intends to take over the continent from Paradise Valley- a beautiful city rumored to sit on top of a large reservoir of Starlight. Steve Rogers, a strong, but ultimately unprepared King, rules the Valley from Paradise City, and he, like so many others, has failed to harness the raw magic, or even find it. Tony Stark, a man with Starlight in his chest, once ruled Paradise, and did beautiful things with the magic it possessed before being unseated from within his court.Aware of impending disaster, Nick Fury convinces Tony to leave his current quiet life as a bartender in Puente Antiguo, a desert town in the far south. Tony Stark, his other bartender, Rid, and his cook, Jo,  will go on the road trip of a lifetime to collect the scattered members of Tony's true family and take back the throne and all the things Steve Rogers stole.Because whosoever controls the Starlight controls the world, and the Demon knows well how to corrupt it.





	1. Kill the Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! this is a completed work. It's fourteen chapters long, start to finish, and runs about four pages/chapter. there's a lot going on in this work, so feel free to ask questions if you're confused. As always, thank you for bearing with me.

In a lot of ways, Fury reminds Tony of when he was growing up. Everybody wants something, and they’ll leave you to freeze to death if it means getting it. 

“Funny,” Tony says as he takes one more drink of his beer before he sets the glass (and it is glass, this time around) down on the rusty hood of his newest project, “how rats always go back to where there was food before, even if you kill all their friends.”

“Yeah, that is funny,” Fury responds as he all but materializes out of the shadows and into the harsh glare of the giant overheads. “Lucky for you, I ain’t no rat. Not here to steal.” 

Tony snorts out his opinion into the cold, empty air.

“That right there is an old story, Fury. You’re going to have to do better.” Tony swings his legs over the side of the car and hops down. He grabs his beer after his feet are planted solidly on the iron upper deck of his workshop. “You and all your crew just take and take and take. And when you’re fat, you call your friends,” he finishes with a glare. 

Fury holds up both hands.

“That ain’t the whole story, Tony. Things went way south of what was supposed to happen. You gotta know that.”

“I know that you came and held me at gunpoint to get what you want. When you didn’t get that, you let your friends do it for you.” Tony looks away, suddenly, a pain in his chest over all the things that Fury’s ‘friends’ had put him through. 

“They aren’t my friends.” Right. Another old story. 

“No, I guess they aren’t. I guess even you have to talk to your friends every now and again, huh?” Tony leans against the railing and takes a drink. Under the big spotlights, every single one of his years shows on his face. Fury shakes its head.

“None of what happened was supposed to go the way it went. I lost control, just like you.”

“Yeah. Learned that the hard way.” Tony tips the glass back and set it down on the car roof again, the remains of froth still visible. 

“That was a pretty beer you were drinkin’. Where’d you get that?” Fury says. He can’t let Tony keep thinking the way he is. He’ll get all melancholy, and no one can work with that.

“Imported shit off one of the tropical isles. They brewed it with hibiscus. Don’t ask about that, I don’t know. I do know that it goes for nine units for a twelve ounce glass. Eight for a copper.” Tony hates how he automatically starts rattling off prices to a guy he doesn’t even want to sell to. 

“Heard you got into a fight.”

“That’s just the same shit in a different toilet.”

“You pissed an entire caravan off.”

“Last time those assholes came through the kids were stealing’ from me. Do I look like the type a guy that wants to replace a quarter of my damn glasses at something’ like twenty five units a pop?” Tony says with a popped eyebrow. His bolbo is half obscured by his big goggles and leather mask. 

“You used to be.”

“No. I used to be able to afford to be like that, but I have never got along with thieves.” Tony says with another pointed glare.

“That why you’re so pissed with me?”

“No. I’m pissed because when a guy like me makes a fuckin’ friend like you I tend to trust that friend. So when I get a roundabout fuck you, I really don’t take it lightly.”

“Look, Tony, what happened then was an accident and you know it. I didn’t see that coming any more than you did.”

“You know what, Fury? I should have. I should have fucking seen it coming, and you see everything.” Tony sets a hand on the railing, and looks at Fury the way he’s wanted to look at him for a long time. His eyes burn like they never do anymore.

“We all should have seen it coming, Tony. I won’t deny that I overlooked something, somewhere. But we have a bigger problem to deal with.”

“What fucking problem.” And Tony knows this is just something he does not want to hear. 

“The Valley’s up for grabs.”

“So what?”

“Rogers and his crew have done a decent job of holding it, but The Demon’s been making waves in the north.”

“The Valley isn’t my responsibility.”

“Bruce was thinking about moving back there. Disease is getting more and more out of control,” Fury replies, and that’s the most transparent grab for Tony’s attention that he’s ever seen. 

“So what? Bruce doesn’t want anything to do with me. I’ve done enough to us both.”

“You’re the last known, and best living, King. If the Demon makes his way there, he’s going to have access to the factories and shit that make manna. He gets that, he’s unstoppable.” 

“Not even Rogers got his hands on that, and Romanoff was trying for it for way too long.”

“He’s got ways. Besides. You and I both know that it isn’t just manna. The Valley’s just the beginning. He takes that, and he has a good chance of taking everything else, including this backwater fuckin’ town that you so very quietly sell beer out of.” Tony rolls his eyes and flings himself over the railing. His boots make a softer sound than they ought on the solid metal floor.

“Maybe I like watching strangers get drunk and beatin’ off thieves.” He walks past Fury to the small tray of other glasses, and sets the one in his hand down.

“I think you like seeing’ that you can make something from nothing,” Fury says.

“Cute.” he sets off down the wide, echoing hallway, and presses his ear against the metal wall. He doesn’t hear anything.

“That brat you’re training’ is cute. This is serious. Look, worse comes to worse, you can pack up and blow away like ya did five years ago.” Tony turns around and looks at him. He’s the shorter of the two, but that’s never intimidated Tony before.

“Fuck off.”

“Tony. Come on now.” If Fury were anyone else, he would be disappointed in Tony.

“What do I get out of it, Fury?”

“Anything you want.”

“Anything I want, or anything I  _ wanted _ ?” Because what Tony wanted was everything. Not materially speaking, necessarily, but he’d wanted knowledge.

He’d burned like a sun in miniature in the home of his boyhood, taunted by his inability to move, and to find fuel for this star behind his skull. Eventually, he had, like many of the hardest men he’d ever met, blown like the sands across the deserts of the south, out of which he now operates. 

He’d been born to the ways of the nomads of the frozen tundra of the north, and been captured there, where he’d been forced to not only learn the powers of the stars to save himself, but had pioneered a way to capture them. In the east, he’d learned to hunt like the great cats that resided in forests surrounded by mountains, and fallen in love in the rainy season. 

He’d been beyond the ground, and learned the ways of the Gliders of the skinny mountains reaching towards the sky, and earned the loyalty of the griffins nesting in the craggy rock faces in the west.

He’d spawned spirits in the sky among the magical floating islands, and ruled his corner of the world from Paradise Valley. Nearly died a dozen times over. 

Eventually, he’d gone home.

He has all that knowledge in his head still, and the star isn’t behind his skull. It’s in his chest. For a while, it had been gone, but, well. The stars he had cost more than one would think. But all that is from too long ago to miss. 

What does he want now, though? Knowledge is not a great unknown. A dare to be taken up. He’d been there. Been everywhere, in fact.

“I think you always liked the idea of keeping your people,” Fury says, voice softer now. Tony doesn’t trust him for a second. Doesn’t trust that the tone does something to him, still. Hates that he doesn’t bite Fury for the rough, callused hand he raises and sets on the side of Tony’s face, lower fingers against his thick, dark beard. “I think you like to keep them safe.”

“You ain’t my people,” Tony gets out, voice still hard even if the rest of his strong, aging body is begging him to lean forward and accept what Fury’s offering now. 

“Maybe yes, maybe no, but I digress. One thing’s for certain, though: yours are scattered. Out of your reach, almost. The Demon comes, and Rogers is still sittin’ on the Throne of the Valley, he’s gonna spread. Potts is near the border. She’ll be the first to go.”

“Fuck you, Fury. Fuck you for coming here.” Tony leans his cheek out of Fury’s palm and stalks around him, back towards the massive main chamber of the ‘shop. He takes a moment to look over everything.

The place was originally a small cave system, with a series of streams that carved out different spaces long ago. The river still runs, of course, down through the center of the main chamber, dispersing between the metal casing and the walls of the place, and collecting at the bottom before funnelling out through the underground and feeding various oases. 

The water powers the ‘shop. It keeps the giant monster lights that cast everything in harsh shadows and yellow-white reliefs on. It powers the heavy machines that move cars from one place to another. This particular chamber is home to the cars themselves. Finished ones sit dark and unused in metal cages. Ones in the works are propped up and torn open on various lofts connected by a series of walkways that make up the upper floor. A large part of one wall is made entirely up of tools and their storage containers.

“I need a bit.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Fury asks. He does not dare touch Tony again. 

“‘Cause I’m not leaving this shit behind, douchebag. Now get out. I never fucking invited you here in the first place.” Fury takes that as his cue to leave and Tony watches to see how he does it. Goddamn nosy ass rat getting in here when the place is fucking locked up tight. Outside, the sandstorm rages on. Inside, Tony sits leaned against the door of his newest disaster and stares at his calluses, wondering if he’s going to live through this one last ride.


	2. Shift the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end of Rid's life in Puente Antiguo starts like all the others.

It’s always the same shit, their regulars. Hal comes in for his first drink at half past six while Rid is mopping. Tony pulls down the stool close to the corner where the bartop makes a ninety degree turn and serves him a Cactus Flower. Then he goes and sits in his spot at the end of the bar near Hal and continues working on the books or whatever else he’s got in his head. 

At 8:04, Gina and Gina’s younger sister, Marie, come in. Marie’s six now, so Tony gets her a pop for two units and orders their four eggs and two sausages at eight units. Gina gets an Evening at five units, copper cup, in the mornings, and a Heat Wave at seven units at the end of the day, round about eleven after Marie’s with her mama. That’s all discounted, cause Gina’s a little too broke, but they ain’t gotta fridge for eggs or milk in their burrow and Gina’s mom, Charlotte, is too proud to let a washed up old drunk install one without buying it herself. 

Tony doesn’t seem to mind the opinion or the profit loss much, though Rid is damned if she knows why. There ain’t nobody else in town that Tony will put up with, but he puts up with Charlotte. Sometimes Rid thinks it’s because Tony loves Gina like a daughter. 

Besides, Tony said he caught Rid and Gina kissing the other day, and quietly left them to their business. Charlotte would take just as much of an issue with Gina kissing another girl as she does with Tony offering a fridge or discounting her two kids’ breakfasts. So Tony lets Gina come around more than she should and makes sure she doesn’t drink too much because a hangover will make her mean and Marie needs someone kind in her burrow. That mean ass mom of theirs just doesn’t cut it.

At 7:25, a stranger blows in, takes his seat between Hal and Tony, and watches the bartender for a moment. Rid is watching out of the corner of her large, blue eyes, head bent to her task of pulling down the chairs from the table tops. 

There isn’t a caravan coming or going today, so this man must know Tony personally. She thinks Tony must have been expecting him, because normally the man will setup the register and run to the bank. By the time he comes back, Rid’s already gone over the floors with the broom and the mop and is waiting for them to dry. They take the chairs down together, most days. 

But Tony got back from the bank and took a seat, so Rid just went about her business and watched, waiting to see what’s happened. The Stranger’s got his eyes on Tony, his goggles resting on his neck and the black linen of his head wrap still shrouding his face. 

“I want a beer.”

“You got units on ya?” Tony asks gruffly, not looking up from the series of figures that are quickly filing down the left side of the page in his accounting book.

“Yeah.” 

“Then pick a beer and set your money on the counter.”

“I want you to pick it.” Tony arches his eyebrow. The man just looks back. By now even Hal, already on his fifth Cactus Flower, is interested, too. The tone is demanding and entitled, and Tony doesn’t sit for disrespect. Not even from mean old Charlotte Hammer on the edge of town, her opinions notwithstanding. The man is just as likely to end up with a copper cup of piss as he is with a beer.

“Do ya?” Tony says after a moment.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Shit, I guess you ain’t gettin’ a beer.” Tony drops his head and continues writing in numbers in neat, black script. The stranger’s annoyed. Tony slides off his chair, takes the accounting book with him, and starts typing something into a terminal. 

“Rid, you gonna move any slower than that today?” Rid realizes she’d stopped what she’d been doing to watch, and she jumps back to her work. Hal finishes off his drink.

“‘Nother one, Hal?” Tony asks without looking. The answer’s yes. Answer’s always been yes. Hal drinks between seven and ten beers in the morning, sobers up through the afternoon, and goes to work at night. 

“Yup,” he grunts out, staring off into space like he always does. Tony pours the beer one handed (like he always does) and sets it down with the same amount of force like he always does. He swipes Hal’s copper cup and shoves it onto the brushes for cleaning. 

Tony’s turned around again, pulling the stoppers out of the rest of the beer taps when the door opens. Gina and Marie walk in, the little girl shuffling all sleepy and soft. She tugs her goggles down clumsily off her face. The bell for the kitchen dings. Jo takes a flat, unimpressed look out at the bar, eyes skipping over Rid and Gina and Marie and Hal to give the stranger the stink eye. 

If Tony didn’t give him piss, she sure as hell would.

“Sorry,” the Stranger says, finally getting the issue. “What’s the Cactus Flower?” But Tony ignores him for a moment longer as he carries the girls’ breakfasts over and sets them down. He pours out Gina’s Evening. 

“Hey, little lady,” Tony says, because sometimes he calls Marie that. She perks up. The name can only mean something new.

“Gotta new pop in. Lemonade, baby. Non carbonated. Ya want it?” Tony holds up the can. Marie’s bobbing her head, so Tony pours her not-pop pop out in the copper glass he let her paint on a while back. 

“What’s shakin’, Gina?”

“Same shit,” Gina responds as she watches Marie to make sure she eats, “different toilet.” Tony’s bobbing his head in agreement. Gina gives him a look. 

“Who’s your friend?”

“He ain’t a friend. Just a rat from a caravan from a long time ago.” Gina shrugs one shoulder.

“This qualify as something new?”

“Nah. Rats have always brought diseases, and this is just another one of ‘em,” Tony says as he pushes off from the bar to go stand in front of the stranger.

“It’s a far eastern style beer brewed with cactus flowers. Little more bitter than most expect.” 

The man nods.

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

“Three units for copper, four for glass.” The man cocks an eyebrow.

“When did that happen?”

“Since I set the damn price. Ya gonna pay or not?” The man nods and lays three units on the counter. Rid clambers up on the chair next to Gina and they start talking quietly while Gina’s Evening starts to disappear. 

Tony and the stranger stay talking quiet like all damn day, and Rid doesn’t like it. Tony doesn’t talk to anyone. Evening comes and goes and Gina comes in for her second drink of the day. Charlotte passes by the door and glowers inside like she always does. Tony takes the time to glower right back. Charlotte doesn’t know shit about him, anyways. She just doesn’t like him because he sells what her no good husband used to drink. 

By the time Tony gets to wiping down the bartop and Rid starts doing up the chairs and stools, the stranger’s spent something like fifty, sixty units on Tony’s bar. Tony catches Rid’s eye and jerks his head towards the door. Rid doesn’t argue. Tony wants privacy, he’ll get privacy. Besides, Gina sometimes goes out on her own to take a few minutes before she beds down, and if Rid’s careful Charlotte won’t catch her. 

Rid pulls her wolfskin coat that Tony said he got when he was travelling in the North and sets out to see if Gina’s there. Sure enough, she’s sitting around the lee of the sand dune the latest storm blew up, smoking a cigar and blowing on her fingers.

“Gina,” Rid whispers. Even though the toes and heels of her boots are copper tipped like everybody else’s, Rid’s got a habit of making no noise. She picked that one up when she spied on people in the Valley for units. Gina doesn’t startle when Rid sits down next to her and lights her own cigar.

“Mama says that stranger’s bad news.” Rid shrugs a shoulder. Out here all alone like this, where all the buildings are underground, ain’t much that qualifies as bad or good. It’s all just news, hyped up any which way Maggie and Carlos, the town gossips, want to take it.

“Bad how?”

“She says that Tony knows ‘im from before, and that he’s gonna convince Tony to go with him.”

“Tony said as much this morning, and he also said he didn’t like ‘im.”

“Doesn’t mean he ain’t bad news.” Rid’s shaking her head.

“Nah, I seen ‘im before. He likes to stir things up, but he ain’t bad, per say.”

“He is if he takes Tony with ‘im.”

“Thought Charlotte don’t even like Tony.”

“Yeah, but every fuck in every caravan likes to drink, and Tony spends all his money down at the junk yards, and the Junkies in the yard like ta eat out and fuck women, and the women like clothes and beer, so it all just gets around. Fury takes Tony with ‘im, and Tony ain’t spendin’ shit. Leastaways not around here.” 

Gina breathes deep again and blows smoke out of her nostrils. Rid bets the cigar’s cheap, ‘cause the good shit she got Rid for her birthday on the downlow don’t let you breathe it into your throat. 

“So somebody’s got to brew. And somebody’s got to cook. And somebody else has got to run the bar and keep the books all balanced like. Long as that’s happenin’, it don’t hardly matter who it is, so long as it’s being done well.”

“You know I can brew?” Gina says, and Rid nods. 

As far as she knows, the old owner couldn’t brew worth shit, but he passed what he couldn’t do all that well on down to Gina, and Gina made just about everything but the Larael, which is a local thing that Justin used to drink in the mornings and the nights before he went on down to run the junkyard. 

Soon as Tony rolls in, he starts pokin’ ‘round the bar and gets hired on as a cook, ‘cause the owner couldn’t do that neither. Eventually, Tony’s takin’ over the books and helping with the brewing and keepin’ the bar running smooth like and the owner’s just rollin’ in the dough. No one’s sure what happened, but between one day and the next Tony bought the bar, hired Jo, and Gina had to quit because Tony started making Larael. 

A couple weeks after that, Rid starts doing chores around the place, learnin’ from the best, and Gina comes in on the downlow. Tony let her sit and drink her beers in the office at first, but after Charlotte went off on Tony and lost, there was no point, and that’s how they got to today. 

“So Tony sells the bar, and some idiot takes over, and Charlotte wants me to stop brewing the Larael, but the Larael’s the best seller. ‘Specially when the caravans roll in. So now I’m fightin’ with my mama and Marie and Maybel’s gonna get caught in the fucking crossfire and where are we? Back to where we were before Tony got here.” Rid’s quiet at that.

“You’re gonna get into it anyhow, ‘cause Charlotte don’t like no queers, and she don’t like no foreigners.”

“You sound like you’re from around here.” Rid shrugs one shoulder.

“So does Tony.” No one, not even Rid, knows where Tony’s from. He doesn’t talk about that.

“Yeah, but Tony’s a slick bastard.” That’s true. 

“Well maybe you should move. You make enough money in the factory to get into the Dorms, dontcha?” 

“The Dorms are where people go to die.”

“Nah, people go there ‘cause they’re desperate, and they forget how to be anything but, so they never leave. You remember what you’re really after, and you’ll be just fine. You could even take Marie with you. Maybe come back for Maybel some time. Ain’t nobody gonna tell you to take ‘em back.”

Everybody knows that Gina’s the one who raises both those brats and helps support Charlotte besides. That’s why she’s always tired, and why she needs a drink, and why Tony will never not discount her order. Gina doesn’t say anything to that, and Rid knows enough by now to just smoke her cigar and wait.

“She says you’re bad too.”

“Yeah?” Gina shrugs a shoulder.

“Truth be told, mama don’t like Tony ‘cause she knew Tony wasn’t the type to stay. It ain’t the Larael, though that don’t make nothin’ better. Where he goes, you’re gonna follow.”

“I’d come back, I think.” Rid’s seen some crazy shit. She’d make sure she wouldn’t be abandoning Gina, if she can help it.

“Yeah, that’s what Daddy said.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okie dokie guys! I didn't even realize it was wednesday and I hadn't posted yet lol. I was working a double monday. Like always, comments and concrit are appreciated. On to the good stuff!  
> I've opened up a prompt box! It's literally called "the prompt box", and it's the newest work I have. all you have to do is go to the prompt box and leave your prompt as a comment on the first chapter. If I'm not going to write it, I'll let you know, but if I am going to write it, the prompts will go up in chronological order beginning in early October.


	3. Move the Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life isn't any easier outside of Puente Antiguo, but at least they're moving again.

The next day, a few minutes before Hal comes in, Rid leans a hip against the glass sink. 

“We’re leavin’, aren’t we?”

“You could stay,” Tony says, and his accent isn’t so southern anymore. Like Rid said, nobody knows where he’s actually from cause his tongue and his walk don’t give it away. 

“Nah, you know how it is, man. You go, I go.”

“What about Gina?”

“She don’t expect me to stay.” Tony stops what he's doing to turn curious eyes on Rid.

“You should. For her. You two could be happy.”

“I ain’t happy with stayin’ still. Gina ain’t gonna be happy ‘till she proves her mama wrong. She gets hitched to a girl, and Charlotte’s gonna look down on her for the rest of her life. Might try and have her exorcised, even.”

“She’s not going to prove Charlotte wrong because Charlotte wants to be right, no matter the cost.”

“Well, it’s what Gina wants," Rid says testily.

“So what are you sayin’?”

“I’m sayin' that if we leave, maybe we need to come back at some point. Maybe somebody should watch the bar who already knows it and won’t skimp on anything. If we’re leavin’.” Tony gives her a long look, the khol on his eyes making them look big and unreadable in the dim bar. For once in their lives, Tony breaks first.

“Yeah, I guess we’re leaving. But you gotta tell her you’re comin’ back or dying out there, yeah? Don’t throw away what you could have by following my washed up ass.” Rid looks towards the door. Hal’s face is getting closer. 

“Sometimes you ain’t washed up. Sometimes you’re just resting.”

#  ...

The week after the Stranger comes to visit (he left again just as quickly) Tony hires Gina back, and starts teaching her the books. Gina’s smart, more of a spitfire than her mama, and more kind, too. The week after that, Jo cooks Gina and Marie their last breakfast, Tony discounts their last meal for them, and the three of them hand over their keys (Rid keeps a secret one, in case of an emergency). 

For the first time in Rid’s memory, Tony lets the two of them into his workshop. The other time, Rid had to sneak in, and there’s no telling what Jo knows. She never talked to anybody, really. Rid could see her going’ with them, since she never did put roots down in this desert town.

The vehicle Tony elects to use has a cargo hold, already mostly filled. They toss in their bags, keep the rucksacks, and climb up into the cabin. The big metal door slides open at the end of the main hallway, and Tony takes them both away in the dead of night. 

Rid looks at his chest, but as always, his canvas coat and linen head wrappings don’t reveal the Star. Even when they were out travelling before they got to Puente Antiguo, Rid never saw it, ‘cept when Tony was injured and couldn’t take care of himself.

Even then, he’d snap if she paused on it too long.

The Caravanner Tony’s got them in makes quick work of the distance, the hoverdisks keeping them off the ground and propelling them out over the landscape. Rid leans her seat back to take a nap after a while. She catches sight of long, skinny Jo, already dropped off, hiding her sky blue eyes. She wonders, suddenly, if maybe Jo had a fella in Puente, and neither she nor Tony knew about it. 

Well, if she did, she certainly took care of it. Jo’s always like that. Taking care of things. So’s Tony, in fact. 

…

The scrubland that surrounds the desert is slightly less hot in the day, and slightly less cold at night, but it’s still utter shit to be in. Whatever. Needs must and all that. Tony pushes his glasses a little further up his nose, a little bit pissy cause the sweat on his skin keeps making them slide down.

He pops the hood of the Caravanner (hover-truck, to the uninitiated; debuted by him something like a decade or two ago.) Rid is sitting on the roof of the cab, her aviators sitting perfectly on her pixie nose (of fucking course; Rid and Jo never seem to sweat. Or shiver. It’s only luck that no one noticed the few times they’ve forgotten their headwraps or their coats). 

Rid tilts her head down away from the high, blinding orb of the sun to look down at Tony. As if she can read minds, she smirks. Tony flips her off and bends his head to look at the engine some more. Inside the cab, Jo sleeps on, uncaring of the weather, Rid’s smugness, or Tony’s foul mood. 

Rid’s mood changes on a dime, and Tony jerks his head up to see what’s happened. Off in the distance, a cloud of dust is slowly growing larger. Shit. One last scan of the dual engine, and Tony jams the dipstick back in place, slams the hood, and jumps up the cab.

“Jo, up!” he snaps as Rid slides into the passenger seat. She climbs over Jo’s legs into the small space between the floor of the cargo hold and whatever it is Tony’s got stored underneath them. 

As she goes, she grabs her canvas pants and iron toed boots and wriggles them on over her shorts. Then she scrambles up the short ladder, hits the button, and pops up above the cargo hold, behind a gatling gun as big as she is and protected by an energy bubble. She pushes her short bob out of her face, slams her helmet in place, and lets the sights adjust.

Jo twists around to grab at a case under the backseat and slides into Rid’s place. She keeps the window rolled up for now, but activates the energy wall between her seat and the driver’s and pulls a gun as long as her arm out of the case. She pulls her hair up into a pony tail as Tony puts his foot to the floor and tries to get them as far away from the cloud of dust as he can.

“Rid, Status!”

“They’re Ravagers. Or Revengers, I really can’t tell.”

“I really need to know that!”

“I know, Jesus, fuck off!” Rid shouts, voice going high and her original accent coming through. She’s from the Isles, and the accent only comes out when she’s under stress with unknown variables. She fucking hates those. 

“You can see clear through a fuckin’ sand storm up to three hundred yards, how do you not know!?”

“They aren’t within three hundred yards!” 

Tony’s gut drops to his toes when he realizes the dark streak ahead of them is, in fact, a canyon. 

“Shit, shit, hang on, Rid!” Tony jerks the wheel, and his side of the Caravanner tilts up at just under forty five degrees as the back end of the cargo hold swings wide. For a moment, Rid sees nothing but sky, and she knows she’s about a half inch from falling over the edge. Her heart is the only thing that works for a few agonizing beats. But then they’re zooming parallel to the ground, and the group kicking up dust is just within range that-

“Ravagers!”

“Hold steady!” Tony shouts. Jo slips a piece of gum into her mouth and turns around in her seat, gun already locked over one arm. She closes her eyes as her own helmet, which she keeps folded down inside the collar of her jacket, locks over her face. Rid’s visuals pop up in the right hand corner, Tony’s in the left. 

The Ravagers have figured out that smudge, and their own arcs are wider, and less harrowing. It’s unfortunate, because most drivers would have thrown the Caravanner over the edge. No one drives like Tony does.

“Shake ‘em up, baby girl.” Rid lets loose with the gatling gun. Three energy bolts in a row shoot out, hitting the second Ravager Caravanner from the left, the one and the middle, and the second from the right. One after the other, the fronts of their vehicles hit the tundra, and throw up gigantic hunks of earth and sand. 

Their hoverplates, knocked out of alignment, serve to push the remaining vehicles out of balance. It pushes the vehicles until the backs of the crashing Caravanners hit the cabs of the remaining ones, leaving the whole fleet imobile.

“Got ‘em,” Rid says quietly, eyes still wide open and scanning for survivors.

“Okay. Good job. Are we good?”

“We’re good.”

“Stand down, Jo, and take the wheel. I need to plot a new course. Stay up for a while, Rid.”


	4. Return the Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony begins to make amends and get the band back.

The forests of the midwest are all tall trees and thickly populated underbush. In other words: a giant Caravanner isn’t going to fit. Tony does something to the control panel, and the Caravanner lands some miles away from the forest proper, where the trees are sparse enough for careful maneuvering.

Out of the lower cargo hold, Tony brings a small, compact Traversor (hoverbike). It’s casing gleams black and well shined in the evening light. Tony takes another glance up at the sky, less big and blue now that the trees are beginning to get in the way. 

Something feels strange in Rid’s chest when she looks up. The sleepy sameness of Puente Antiguo is falling away, replaced and dispersed by the quick adrenaline-punch of their brief flight from the Ravagers. It’s all under her skin now, spreading out through veins and arteries, beating in the shallow pulse at her throat.

As Rid surveys the surrounding trees, she smiles a bit. She used to live like this: a lean, savage animal, born in the isles, and Tony’s ward from the day she blinked open her sky eyes and her sight focused for the first time. She was right: Puente Antiguo was rest, and a way to get back to their start.

Now: it’s time to wake up.

…

Evidently, Tony did not come here prepared to win. He came prepared to surrender. As soon as the bike’s engine silently powers down, when he and Rid are miles and miles away from their disguised Caravanner, dozens of crossbows poke out of the trees, their energy cores disguised by the thin metal bolts mounted on the launchers.

Rid is ready to fight, knife in one hand, wrist pressed against her thigh in preparation for throwing up a shield that will survive the first volley, a revolver in the other. Tony raises his hands. Rid does not hesitate, and raises her hands too, gun and knife remaining where they are stashed.

“Evenin’ boys, girls. Tell me: is Pepper here?”

“Whot’s it to ya?” one unidentified voice asks, insolent and untraceable.

“I knew ‘er, once. I’d like to see if that’s still true.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tony.” Murmuring can be heard amongst the branches, and shadows move without rhyme or reason. They’re kept there for the longest, standing amidst the scrub brush, the sound of coyotes distantly echoing out over where they roam at the blurry border between tundra and forrest.

“‘E’s good, lads,” someone eventually says. Presumably, the body that goes with that voice leaps down from a branch and straightens up, powerful hooves hitting the ground with dull thuds, and furred thighs hardly feeling the effort.

“Name’s Peter. You must be that racer fuck Pep mentioned.”

“That’s me,” Tony says, taking a thickly calloused, yet still small hand in his own, “Got any centaurs around here?” Peter shrugs in the dark and turns, his little tail flicking where it peeks out from under his shawl. 

“A few, racer boy.”

“Man, kid, and that’s a lot of talk from a fuckin’ fawn’s  _ baby _ .” Peter shrugs one shoulder and turns, his mask keeping his face hidden.

“Fawn or no, I’m a good shot, so maybe watch yourself. What are ya, fifty?”

“Forty five, fawn-kid, and I can still kick your ass.” Peter snorts as he leads Tony through the trees, Rid riding the bike in behind them. Gruff as Tony is, he clearly likes whoever this kid is. Well, it’s clear to Rid, but she won’t say anything about it to the fawn-kid. He deserves to figure it out by himself.

…

The fawns, for those who don’t know, live in the trees. Specifically inside the trunks of the biggest, most comfiest trees that will take a magic rearranging best. Tony and Rid are told to leave the bike outside, which they do, and are escorted high into the branches and into a particularly thick tree.

“Ah, Pep, it’s all very you,” Tony says, looking around. The tree had hollowed out of its own accord, it’s center falling away to make furniture with modern angles and smooth, natural curves. Pepper herself sat at the edge of a large platform adorned with pillows and blankets, various fawns and satires resting on it.

“What do you want, Tony,” Pepper says, mouth tilted with an unhappy slant.

“Good things, though the reason I came to see you is somewhat bad.”

“What is it?”

“You know how black rats do? Getting into everything, spreading the plague wherever they go?” Pepper nods.

“Well one of them brought rumors.” Tony leans down so that his mouth his next to her ear. Somehow, he doesn’t so much as brush against her. “He says the Demon in the North is jonesing for the Valley.”

“What do I want with the Valley?”

“You don’t. But the Valley’s the crown jewel. You send your people through it to trade, doncha? The demon takes that, and he’ll be in the prime position to come here, or anywhere.” Pepper’s mouth tightens further.

“What do you want?” she asks, downy ears flicking in annoyance.

“I’m taking back the crown.”

“And you want me to go with you.”

“Just long enough to show strength,” Tony says. He crosses the distance between them and presses one soft kiss to her forehead, but doesn’t go any further. “What’s a king without his queen?” he says, voice fond. Pepper looks at him, her big sheep’s eyes showing him a thousand different emotions. Finally, she stands up and leads him away. Pepper’s private bedroom has another fawn in it, dozing beneath soft cashmere.

“A moment, love,” Pepper says, her voice low and soft to match the gentle lighting. The fawn gets up and leaves, shoulder rubbing against Pepper’s as she goes. Tony smiles a little as he watches light reflect off the fawn’s sable coat.

“Don’t.” Tony raises his hands.

“Wasn’t going to.”

“You were smiling like you were thinking.” Tony shakes his head.

“I’m thinking I hurt you, and I’m glad I didn’t ruin you.” Pepper blinks her eyes in thought.

“You remember when we met?” she asks, voice strange and far away.

…

The car was a piece of shit on four good tires. That’s what Tony knew even before he ran the diagnostics. The fawn driving it didn’t know shit, either. Matter of fact, it’s a good thing she came in, because it’s just a matter of luck the damn thing didn’t break down. Tony saunters back over the the lady.

She hadn’t taken off her goggles, though her kerchief sat on top of her scarf and covered the shawl that kept Tony from getting a good look at her upper body. Her lower body, from the iliac crests and down, was covered in copper curls that looked beautiful and downy, despite taking the brunt of arid heat and scorching winds.

“Well, the bad news is ya might as well take tha tires and scrap tha rest,” Tony says, his drawl identical to everyone else’s.

“And the good news?” the fawn said, like she didn’t believe him, or like he had yet to say anything she hadn’t already heard. 

“It didn’t die on the roadway,” Tony said with a bit of a sneer to his face. Not cause it’s a fawn or a female, but because there’s a certain amount of negligence someone has to have before they let a car get this bad.

“How much?” the lady said, eyes flicking behind him to the open hood of her ‘35 Rumbler 05.

“More units than a lone wolf like yerself is packin’, if ya know what’s good for ya.” Lady cocks her brow. How she has eyebrows when her entire face is covered in soft, almost peach-colored fur, Tony didn’t know.

“Oh?” Lady says.

“Uh-huh,” Tony grunts out. His knit shirt is getting dirtier by the moment, and he doesn’t know why he’s acting like an asshole to one of the only women he’s seen that isn’t already aware of his reputation in a long time.

“Well, what about a deal?”

“What deal?” Lady shrugged one shoulder.

“This place is called ‘Patrick’s’. You don’t look like a Patrick to me.”

“Cause I’m not. Owners a redhead. Like you, only freckled.”

“Well, you look like you’re tired of this town, and I’m betting that accent isn’t the one you were born with.” The lady was smirking now, like she had got him figured out, and Tony was kinda happy about it, if it was going where he thought was.

“What’s your point, Fawn?”

“Name’s Pepper,” the lady says as she sticks out one velvet hand. Tony took it in his own larger one. Against the short, satiny fur, it felt like his own hands were smooth and unmarred. 

“Tony.”

“Right, Tony. So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m tired of getting fucked over by every mechanic from here to the damned isles, and you’re prolly tired of pretending like you’ve always been here. Fix my car, and I’ll get you to and from wherever I’m going.” Out of the corner of Tony’s eye, he could see another of the mechanics disappear.

“Lady,” Tony said as he turned away to grab paper off the printer. He scribbled something on it and handed it to her. “Decide what you want fixed and stop wasting my time.”

Patrick, in actuality, was the owner’s father, dead for some years before Tony came along. Rumor had it he was about twice the businessman his boy was, and the boy was no slouch. Either way, that scribble was his address, and Tony and Pepper made off a few days later with all Tony’s tools in the back of Pepper’s trunk and his bag on the seat behind his chair.

…

“Yeah, I remember.”

“I think I knew you were bad news when I saw you.”

“But you asked me to come along anyways. Got fucked out of more money on your car than I’d ever seen before.”

“I needed some bad news, and I think the investment was worth it,” Pepper says, a little smile back on her face.

“Can I be your bad news again? I’ll be good, this time.” Tony says, and there’s a careful, if scant distance between them. Before, he might have crowded her, and they would end up tangled together on her bed. Tony was funny like that.

“You were good, last time, but somewhere in there we both forgot something, and it undid us.”

“Yeah, it did, didn’t it?” Tony says, and his expression’s a little guilty, a little wistful, a little thoughtful. Pepper’s eyes slide away from him to think, and he lets her, doesn’t try to pressure her. If they’re doing this again, they have to do it right.

“I always did hate how it all ended.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah. You should still be the King, Tony,” Pepper says as she looks at him again, ears flicking thoughtfully, horns small and deadly where they curl back from her forehead.

“You feel like going on a rampage?” one side of Pepper’s mouth pulls into a smile as she looks into his eyes.

“You know what? I think I do. Besides,” Pepper says as she moves past him to a chest, “I can run my lads out of the Valley, and quadruple my reach.

“And that’s just to start,” Tony says with an encouraging, slightly evil look in his eyes. “You know we might die, doing this?”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ve been selling beer for ten years. You’ve been running caravanners from here to the dessert for longer; we aren’t the people we were. Rogers has been in Sin City for longer.”

“If you think I think you haven’t taught that girl of yours everything you can, you and I are both a damn lie.”

“I’m just saying.”

“And I’m saying don’t worry about it. We’ll do what we’ve always done. You fix my car, I’ll get you where you want to be and make money any and every way.” Tony presses one last kiss to her forehead, and Pepper thinks she sees something relieved in his eyes.

“I knew I missed you for a reason; you keep me steady.” Pepper looks away, back to the armor in her chest.

“Kinda failed you in that regard.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t fixing shit in the end,” Tony says. “I was just breaking things.” Pepper shrugs one shoulder.

“You weren’t the only one.”

“Is Happy’s fat ass still running around here?”

“Yeah, and he’s gonna be mad at you for calling him fat.”

“Well, he can tell me that himself, won’t he?” Pepper smiles fully this time, mischief in his eyes.

“Yeah, he will.”

…

Happy is fucking gigantic, even as a centaur. His upper, human half is a bit on the chubby side, with thick brown hair sprouting over his forearms and across his knuckles and the tanned, scarred expanse of his torso. His equestrian half is broad, with thick forelocks covered in longer fur and hooves as wide as Tony’s head.

He picks Tony up and hugs him when he sees him, and Tony just lays there in his grip, happy and content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok guys I'm having a hard time just. Updating on mondays. The new rule is there will be one update/week but it can be any day of the week. Thank you!


	5. Prepare the Army

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony goes about collecting bits and pieces of his real friends.

There’s a flurry of activity in the forest. Sometime between when they last talked and now, Pepper had her fauns bring out their own hovercrafts from where they’d stored them, and the morning sun illuminates the gloom of the forest, and the smooth metal bodies. 

Fauns haul bundles, boxes, crates, and bags into the underbellies of the caravaners, talking and laughing as they work. Pepper and Tony walk together. Pepper’s checking in with different fauns with lists in their hands who appear to be directing everyone else. 

“I won’t be with you all the time,” Tony says. His voice is quiet, pitched low so only Pepper can hear.

“Where will you be, then?” she asks. Tony doesn’t answer right away, and for a moment, Pepper thinks he won’t answer at all. And then:

“You aren’t the only one I wronged. There are amends I need to make.”

“Why now?” Pepper asks, a sharp note of worry and confusion in her voice. 

“What I mean to undertake could cost me my life,” Tony explains. Pepper is shaking her head before he’s even done.

“You’ve never been concerned about that. I don’t recall you ever being the type to save for your deathbed what you could do years ago, or to have second thoughts just because you’re dying,” she answers with a snort. Tony shrugs his shoulders. 

“Be honest with me, Tony. That’s the only way this is going to work.” 

“I loved Bruce. He always felt like a monster, and maybe he was, but he was also just. Unmeasurably precious to me. And I ruined it. Us. I ruined us. With greed and with blindness and with a thousand other things that cost me everything. And I know that he’s out there, somewhere, probably alone and likely blaming himself, because he’s the monster here.” Tony pauses to take a breath.

“If this works, then I’ll be ruling the Valley again, and there’s no one I’d want at my back more. There’s no one I want to prove myself to more. There’s no one I’d want to love more. And if this doesn’t work, and I die somewhere in the middle, then yes, I do want to make it right before I die.” 

The duo watch in silence as the fauns continue loading the caravaners. Slowly, Pepper begins to nod. 

“Then I’ll meet you.”

“At the edge of the Valley where the wind doesn’t blow?” Tony asks, a playful tilt to his mouth at the old phrase. 

“And where the sunlight never touches,” Pepper finishes. 

…

Tony leaves both Rid and Jo with Pepper, with strict instructions not to start a fight with the sassy young faun who had taken a liking to Tony. He’s not really worried about Jo, though. She’d been cool as a cucumber since the very beginning of her existence. He’s more concerned with Rid’s bullheadedness than anything. 

Five days after he’s left, with his personal bags on his bike and a promise to return soon in the air, the clouds begin to gather and they never quite go away. The landscape turns greener and greener, and colder as well. The first rains begin to fall when Tony reaches hill country. He hears the first roar of a proper river four days after that, when the hills are stretching higher and higher. 

Tony brings the bike to a stop high up on the embankment. For a moment, he observes the frothing water and cold, harsh winds. Then he turns the bike back on and makes his way upriver. There has to be a bridge somewhere.

The higher he travels, the more he’s convinced that the bridge is in the other direction. After a few minutes’ hesitation, he decides to keep going. The river is taking him where he wants to go, anyways. 

He does not find what he’s looking for until the winds and the rain have accumulated into a true eastern storm. The water is like needles, and air is cold enough that hail the size of his pinky nail beats down on him. 

The water, nestled at a low point between four mountains, only fills up enough space to be a pond, but lord, is it deep. The achingly clear liquid stretches down forever and ever. Small fish and luminous plants grow where they’re attached to the rocky earth. The far side of the pond has a waterfall, while the near side has the river mouth. Small trees and hardy scrub brush grow deep and green. Their roots hold the walls of the pond in place. 

Tony can see small fruit, swaying in the storm. With more care than he’d shown at any other point, Tony guides the bike around the trees, avoiding the shore proper until he can get to the waterfall. The roar is deafening (it reminds him of someone he used to know), but Tony ignores it, focused instead on the actual water. 

He’d long since traded his desert wrappings for a hooded leather jacket. Though he’d kept the glasses and goggles. The bike is all-terrain, and it can put up with the beating from the storm and from the waterfall itself. Tony looks up, and sees where the flow of the water is interrupted by a broad, jutting rock, making the force of the water just a bit weaker. 

It’s as good a place to cross as any. Tony backs up far enough up to get a good bit of speed, then drives the hover bike through a gap in the trees and over the cliff face. The force of the waterfall drops his bike, but, as expected, the area behind it hasn’t changed much, and he lands on solid rock with plenty of room to maneuver. For a moment, the ear-splitting squeal of unpainted metal on rock is all Tony knows, and then the bike is coming to a stop. 

Tony shuts off the bike, and listens to it quietly lower itself to rest on the ground. He pushes his hood back, pulls off his helmet, and shakes his too-long hair out. He lets his eyes wander around. Like it had been all those years ago, the caves behind the waterfall are broad and old, the rock dark and smooth. There’s a main chamber, with the rest hidden behind a rock wall that only a few know about. 

“Bruce?” Tony asks, and he hopes his old love is here, because he doesn’t know what he’d do if Bruce were gone. This is one of the few places that Bruce ever felt safe, from himself and from everyone else. If the man has gone to ground, then it’s here he’ll be. 

It is quiet for too long, but Tony muscles down his instinct to call out again and waits, like Bruce always wanted him to. (Patience, Tony. It won’t kill you). Eventually, he gets the sense of a large mass, moving somewhere around him, and then the water grows darker in the space between the waterfall and the cave floor. It moves, raises up all on it’s own before it begins to gradually break. 

A huge head rises up, the scales a deep green, the plates of armor deeper still. Great teeth clasp together beyond the confines of its mouth. Great eyes with no whites and no irises stare at him. The water falls further away, revealing heavy plates of armor, smaller around its neck, but broadening and branching out the lower down Tony sees. 

Highlights in emerald green mark its shoulders, and down it’s arms, front, and back in a long, ropey pattern. Tony quickly counts- four arms, all tipped with three fingers and a thumb, all clawed. Four eyes, two for the sides, two for the front. All the teeth Tony remembers, all the armor. A great tail lashes around, and Tony recognizes that too. The fins seem to be in as good a shape as they were all those years ago. 

For a moment, Tony just stares, taking in new scars, and grateful none had cost the creature its ability to move. 

“Bruce,” Tony breathes. “ I’ve missed you.”

Bruce growls at him, then turns and walks by.

“Please, just talk to me.”

It takes three days for Bruce to talk. Three days of Tony lurking in one corner of the cave, trying not to be too big of an imposition, but also not wanting to disappear (who is he kidding? Bruce never lost track of anything that moves before). Three days of Tony emptying out the softshell, water proof bags and venturing out beyond the waterfall to find firewood and food. Three days of him bringing Bruce offerings. 

The first day, the gift is a shell he found off the coast of one of the eastern isles, around the time when Rid was born. It is a deep, lovely green- just like the highlights on Bruce’s armored plates. It’s couched in dinner- an entire two netfuls of freshwater clams that Tony had caught and roasted on the fire until the shells opened up enough to pry away with a knife. Bruce ignores him, and the gift, but Tony leaves him the clams- meat and all. The next morning, they’re gone. 

The next day, the gift is pearls from The Lake of Dreams, where both Tony and Bruce had seen visions of things they’d encounter in the future. The visions had come true, of course, but the two hadn’t seen enough. It’s brought with the eels from the lake, the likes of which were fast enough to not be caught by Bruce, and angry enough to attempt to sting him.

The third night’s gift is a little metal bracelet engraved with runes for good dreams and restful sleep, since Bruce is such an insomniac. Tony brings it along with as many of the little apples as he can get from the trees. He’d make something with them, but Bruce had always preferred-

“Talk.” 

Tony’s eyes widen at the sight before him. He’d looked away from Bruce for a moment, to set the bracelet down. It, like everything else, had been ignored, though the food had been eaten. Though Tony knows Bruce is not one to waste and would have eaten the food whether Tony got it or not, Tony likes think of it as acceptance of his presence, anyways. 

Now, though, the monster is gone. Bruce stands before him, wary, naked, skinny, and wet. Skin, pale in the firelight, like he hadn’t seen the sun in a long while, gleams at Tony from all the places where a thick layer of hair isn’t covering Bruce. The man’s hair is long and wild, the dark curls dripping below his shoulders and down his back in tangles. 

The scarring that had looked… not painless, but fitting, on Bruce’s other body now stood out in horrible twists. Tony feels a little sick, thinking of them. It’s likely he received those scars as a human, after all. Large, luminous eyes glare at him, daring him to make a comment on Bruce’s nakedness. His shivering. His unwillingness to take anything at all from Tony, even the blanket. 

Tony has all kinds of answers to Bruce’s every question laid out in his head. There’s all kinds of stories he could give, ones where the focus is on sappy things. He could tell him about how he’s missed his love. About how every day Bruce is gone Tony regrets a little more. About how sometimes Bruce’s absence is enough to reach out and choke him. 

But Tony wants to keep Bruce, and if he’s going to do that, he has to be honest. He has to do it right. So Tony opens his mouth, and stalls as he abruptly decides to keep all of his other reasons to himself for now, and simply begins with the most pressing one.

“The Demon is coming. To the Valley.”

“You aren’t welcome in the Valley. Neither am I. Not unless we were either enslaved or taxidermied,” Bruce says. Tony wants to offer him water, but he knows Bruce won’t take it. Way back when the world made sense, Tony used to give things all the time. It showed he cared. It still shows he cares. And for Bruce to reject his gifts out of hand? It stings, but Tony reminds himself that he has no right to ask Bruce to be cautious of his feelings now. 

“Because of the current King,” Tony answers. Distantly, he notes how the diffused light from the waterfall and the fire bounces off of the sharp planes of Bruce’s face (he still remembers making a place where the man could fill out a little bit).

“Because you were too caught up in your games and  _ Steve Rogers _ to see what was right in front of you,” Bruce argues, voice quiet, and calm, but it hurts like a punch to the stomach. 

“Well, I won’t say I wasn’t fascinated. He was so much better than I could ever hope to be, after all. But did you think I missed how you jumped into bed with Natasha? Steve’s confidant? The one person who might have tipped us off?” Tony asks. (There was fire in the lower tunnels, blazing out over the water, and there was a man, screaming. Losing himself).

“We- you told me. Way back before you ever met Steve, that if I ever found someone I wasn’t afraid to be with, I could.”

“Yes, I did, and I meant that,” Tony answers. (The man is dissolving, his soul fleeing while a demon nips at his heels.) “But if we’re talking about who is more responsible for our current conditions, then you can’t foist that off on me. And you ran. We could have.” 

Emotion chokes Tony out, for a few, painful moments (The man is gone, his soul disappeared, his body laying at the feet of a woman with magic as red as blood). 

“We could have recovered, you and I, but instead you ran, and I had to live with the Witch.” The Witch who killed Jarvis in a fit of rage (she called it fear, and a loss of control, and Steve loved her like a daughter).

“You have never lived with anything you didn’t want in your life,” Bruce snarls. (Pepper was gone. Tony didn’t have to chase her away. A big centaur and his little group of fauns did that for him. She never really liked City life, so he did his best to move her out of it)

“Would it be that I was that lucky,” Tony snarls right back. Because Bruce is right, to an extent. Tony has always had the Starlight dancing in his hands. He’s always had someone looking out for him, even if it was only for themselves in the end. People have died for him (Rhodey and Yinsen, both choking up blood on different occasions, both sacred people in the graveyard of Tony’s past).

But the Starlight had rendered him an object in the eyes of his tribe, and later, of his adopted father. His money attracted vultures. His face attracted the sirens. Everything he has came with a far heavier price than what Bruce is acknowledging. (Left with no one, what could he do but keep those who had been just as blind as he?)

“You play with things you don’t understand-” (a new spirit, designed to recover the old. In the end, it only wounded Tony further) “-and the rest of us pay the price for it,” Bruce finishes. Tony smiles, a thin, razor sharp thing. 

“Not you, Bruce. Never you, right? You just run before that happens, and then someone else- me, of course- picks up the pieces. Or the pieces don’t get picked up at all.”

“That’s not how it played out and you know it,” Bruce insists. And Tony wonders who the hell he thinks he’s fooling. 

“My bed was awfully big and cold for someone who didn’t leave me all alone,” Tony breathes. His smile falls away, and he takes a step closer.

“Did you know I actually apologized for your absence? Nat was so… forlorn. She had me fooled, too. I really, genuinely thought that she missed you. Not as much as I missed you, maybe, but the sentiment was still there. So I apologized to her for how things turned out. And for not being a better King. And for ruining all sorts of things.

“Meanwhile, she’s in bed with the Witch, both figuratively and mentally. She is the one who let her into the palace. She is the one who told her about Jarvis. Told her about me and Steve and me and you. But she didn’t say a word. So when it all came crashing down? It looked like it was all my fault. And I apologized, even as I was hurting more than anyone. 

“But you still have the audacity to stand there and tell me that it was my fault.”

“If you had been more vigilant-” Bruce begins, his voice low and testy. 

“If you had a single ounce more courage than you did, neither of us would be here today,” Tony cuts him off. For a moment, their words echo in the silence. Bruce doesn’t have a response to that. Tony had been reckless, sure, but Bruce abandoned him. 

“But that is not what I came to talk about,” Tony continues. 

“The Demon,” Bruce prompts. 

“Yes. I… he is not alone. He has generals, some of which I’ve had the unfortunance to meet. If he takes the Throne, the city is done for. The Valley is done for. If he finds the Starlight, there will be no end to what he can do.”

“So you want to go back.” 

Tony shakes his head.

“I was preparing for him, long ago, before things went so wrong. I want to do that again, and this time, I won’t be distracted by things as stupid as love and the benefits of the doubt. So my only question is, Bruce: are you with me?”


	6. Make the Amends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce has mixed feelings about Tony. Peter is excited. Tony goes to see a house about a dog.

It rankles Bruce to have to go near Tony for anything, including the food and water that Tony has in his bags. Unfortunately for him, there’s only one motorcycle. Hence the stiff, days-long ride out of hill country and towards the Valley. 

When they finally meet up with Pepper in a secluded spot about four miles away from the lip of the Valley proper, Bruce could not be happier to get off the back of the motorcycle. Tony, as always, is tempting, and Bruce knows he could have things just the way he wants them, if he let there be meaning in the way he wraps his arms around Tony’s waist. 

Tony is hardly helping Bruce’s resolve, either. He’s respectful, and doesn’t force the issues Bruce has. He keeps his distance like he knows Bruce wants, and doesn’t look too disappointed when Bruce does things like sleep way too far away. It would be so much better if Bruce had something to fight. A quantifiable reason to rage and scream and push Tony away.

But he doesn’t have that. Not anymore. He used up all his anger in the three day standoff, and now he’s just trying to avoid being dragged back into the Wonderful World of Tony Stark. Trying to avoid feeling like, if he put the work in, he could have a family again. Trying to avoid laying his cheek against Tony’s back or hooking his chin over his shoulder in the quiet, affectionate gestures they used to trade, way back when. 

So instead he gets off the hoverbike as quickly as possible and, after taking a moment to get his legs working again, falls back while Tony leads the way. They make their way through the trees to a cliff face in the middle of the forest, where a crack in the rock is sheltering Pepper. The crag itself is covered by moss and small scrub brush. If Bruce and Tony did not know it was there, they would have passed right by it. 

As it is, Tony, after taking a look around, heads right on through. 

“Mr. Stark, you’re back!” a young, excited voice greets. Bruce eyes Tony, but the other man doesn’t seem surprised at what sounds like an actual child with them. There’s a skittering sound, and Bruce looks up in time to see a fawn with tawny fur crawling over the ceiling with no help or handholds. What the hell?

“Yeah, kid, and I brought a friend,” Tony answers. His smile is indulgent to those who know him. To everyone else, it’s cocky. 

“Oh my god! You’re Bruce! Do you still turn into a sea monster!?” Bruce eyes Tony, whose own eyebrows are raised. So he’s not the one who told the kid about that, then. 

“...Yes,” Bruce answers. The fawn drops from the ceiling, flips on the way down, and does a perfect landing: feet wide, legs bending to absorb the impact, and hands out straight. 

“That’s. Awesome,” Peter answers. Bruce smiles at him. The smile is shrunk by shyness and wariness, but it is real. 

“I’m glad you think so.”

…

Later that night, Bruce and Tony go out to get the bike. Pepper joins them.

“I want to go in alone. Do some scouting before we bring in the calvary,” Tony says. Pepper catches Bruce’s eye. They’d never agreed on the necessity of Bruce’s parting, and Bruce thinks Pepper’s been holding a grudge ever since. Why, Bruce doesn’t know. It’s not like Tony didn’t drive her away too. Bruce looks away. 

Whatever Pepper is planning to say, she’ll have to do it on her own.

“That isn’t a good idea. You’re persona non grata number one after the shit Rogers pulled, and Romanoff likely has a network of spies,” Pepper points out. 

“No one cares about a desert wanderer any more than they cared about a Northman’s orphan,” Tony argues. “Besides, there are things I need to see.”

“What things could possibly mean you should go alone?” 

Tony shrugs a shoulder. 

“Most of the town was against me when I left, but there are some that were not. I want to see who is still there and whether or not they are amenable to… a change in regime again,” Tony answers. The pieces come together slowly in Bruce’s head, but once they do…

“You want to see if Jarvis is there.” 

Pepper’s eyes snap to Bruces, and he can see that she’s quickly coming around to his conclusion. That man is the only one Tony would bother sneaking anywhere for, and if anyone is going to defy death, it is him. 

“Yes,” Tony answers.

…

Under cover of darkness, Tony steals into the city like a fog steals over a bay. The nightlife is as loud and dangerous as it was before. While the city has changed a bit, with businesses moving around and such, the area that Tony is in has mostly remained the same. 

A familiar alley, and a familiar manhole later, and Tony is crouched on top of a broad sewer pipe. Other, thinner ones run alongside it. It smells like death down here, but the pipe is dry and wide enough to crawl down, and the ceiling high enough that Tony has room to do it. 

Before he begins, he takes his mask out from where it had been folded up in his jacket and slides it over his head. His respirator blocks out most of the smell, and the goggles he’d already had on protect his eyes from the fumes. 

After a moment of listening, Tony begins, the long, slow trek. 

It takes hours, and the other pipes have split off. New pipes have joined this tunnel and split as well. Finally, though, Tony finds where he’s going by memory. He puts his ear to the manhole cover and listens, but feels and hears nothing. 

Good.

Cautiously, he lifts the heavy iron disk, which takes him up into a smaller tunnel, this one distinctly worse in smell. He crawls out onto a ledge. To his right, a river of sewage runs by, and up ahead, Tony knows there are guards. Even if the rotation has changed, Tony knows, they’ll be passing by sometime within the hour. The low torches that illuminate the walkway won’t allow Tony to stay where he is and hide. 

He takes a look around, and eyes what looks like a dry tributary tunnel across the way, on the other side of the sewage river. It’s blocked off by it’s own grating, with a latch on it. Above is a series of narrow bars that lead to another exit. Perfect. 

Tony takes a running leap. For a moment, he’s weightless; nothing and no one have any effect on him. And then his hand catches the third rung up from the cover, and his body smacks against the wall. He’ll feel that later. Before he loses his momentum, Tony climbs his way up until he can grip the ladder with both hands and feet, before looking back down. 

He’d gotten a look at the grating, and it looks like an old fashioned lock. In other words: it’s pick-able. Tony fishes his lockpicks out of a pants pocket and moves his respirator down enough to grip the case in his teeth. The iron bars that make up the ladder extend out from the wall for four inches. Tony hooks his boots in the crack, rests all his weight on the tops of his feet, then carefully leans backwards until he’s hanging upside down. 

He hangs down just far enough to grab the lock. He sets the lockpicks down on the ladder’s lowest rung, then grabs for the lock. The thing is years old; it was probably around when Tony was. It has faint markings of someone else’s magic though. Tony would know the blood red flash that temporarily blinds him anywhere. 

Whatever else may be happening, the Witch’s magic is still strong enough to permeate this far down, though Tony doubts she ever took her pretty little nose to the sewers. 

The lock is the work of a few minutes, then the door is swinging open. In short order, Tony is crawling inside, the case back in his pants and the respirator back over his nose. Once he’s in the tunnel, he turns around and swings the gate closed. The lock, he threads through the latch again and then he wriggles back until he’s out of the faint light of the lamps to wait. His sleeve is pulled back far enough to look at his watch. 

At three until four, a set of guards walks by. At twelve after, Tony sees another set. A third pair go by fifteen minutes later, and a fourth at fifteen again. At three until five, the first set comes by again. Tony smirks to himself as he moves forward and goes through the motions of getting himself out of the tunnel. 

That many guards for the sewers means there is unrest in the streets, and Rogers is being overly cautious. He’s gotten smarter. Tony makes fast tracks, going at a run a quarter mile up. He makes it in six minutes, then throws himself up the ladder. He has maybe five minutes left. He pushes his way out into another tunnel, this one dry. 

The room is dark, and while Tony can’t see much, he can tell by the lack of lingering sewage in his nose that this is not part of the tunnels under the city. No, this is something else. This is something he built. 

Or, more precisely, something he built with an old friend. (There is a man, and another. The pair stood together, and their bond was carved from stone)

Tony looks back at the manhole cover, but it isn’t visible anymore. Instead, it looks like the same stone the room is made out of. He takes in the smooth floors, the arching, perfect pillars, stretching high to bear the load of the ceiling. To his right, a mass expanse of water as smooth as glass. (They came here, under cover of darkness, and created night after night). 

Far off, on the other side of the room, is a door, sealed for years. (And when they were done, their work became their respite).

Tony narrows his eyes at the sight of a figure, though. He stands alone on the edge of the pool. Most of his body is lost to darkness, but the luminescence of the water reflects off of him enough for Tony to know that he has a lot of scars on his skin, and that one of his arms is pure metal. Tony spares a moment to ask why a man who has clearly been here for a while somehow missed him coming out of a hole in the ground. (When the first man was gone, the second reached out in the night, and mostly felt cold).

The minutes tick by, and neither man moves. Tony does not dare breathe. After a while, the man at the edge of the pool withdraws, and Tony takes in the relief he can feel coursing through his bones. (But sometimes, if he was in their respite, he could reach out his hand and touch the wall. Occasionally, the second man would be there)

“He seems lost,” Tony murmurs into the quiet of the room. He draws near the pool, staring down in to luminescent water with no light source. His eyes close as he breathes in and out, wondering what exactly the other man is doing in the room he built to shelter himself and Jarvis. 

Option one is the man is magic, but he did not seem that way. Magic users as lost as that are usually more unnerving. Option two is the man has some sort of mutation which allowed him to get in here, which could very well be dangerous. Again, though, Tony has a bit of a sixth sense for these things, and his sixth sense says no. The third option is that the room let him in there. (It is like this that the respite becomes a haunted house). 

Tony looks at the door, and then again at the pool.

(Red killed the man; broad and unrefined)

Jarvis’ death had been callous and rough. He’d been killed with a metaphorical mallet, rather than a scalpel. Tony is willing to bet the important pieces of him, so tiny and hard to see and resilient, are still around, and, given enough time, they would have amassed. 

But not just anywhere. No, they would have gone some place familiar. Some place where they could hide their growth and get plenty of rest. Some place like… Tony rises and carefully strips down to his undersuit. The fabric feels elastic, and does not hold water. Then, with his things neatly in a dark corner, he slides down into the water. 

His heart soars as a presence immediately surrounds him, prying into what feels like his soul, pushing itself far past the bounds of what most things can do. 

“Hello, Jarvis,” Tony says in the quiet stillness of the water. 

For a moment, there is no acknowledgement. And then, the presence is warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late y'all. The next chapter will be up sometime this week.


	7. Greet the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony needs an extraction and he finds he is not the only one who knows about what's coming.

“I’ve missed you,” Tony just barely muscles out past the tightness in his throat. The water is utterly, beautifully still, glowing, and, Tony slowly realizes, opaque where it was clear before. A gentle swell lifts the surface of the pool, and then a figure is emerging.

The fire in Tony’s chest dies a little bit when he realizes the figure is made entirely out of water, rather than his old friend just hiding beneath the surface. Still though, this is Jarvis, just the same, even if he doesn’t have a body anymore. 

“I’ve missed you,” Tony says again as tears choke the power out of his voice. “I’ve missed you.” 

The figure wraps its arms around Tony, and for all that Jarvis is incorporeal except, evidently, in certain circumstances. 

“I’m coming back, Jarvis. Just give me time.” The watery head nods against his shoulder. A peculiar shift occurs in Tony’s head, and then it feels like there’s someone else in there with him. A soft, gentle presence comes up alongside him and Tony cannot help but smile. 

“It’s good to have you back,” he says. He rises, and is nearly turned away, before he sees the door. Curiosity has always been his downfall, and it is no different now. Tony turns back, and paces the length of the room. The door falls away, and though Jarvis projects uneasiness, Tony continues on. 

It’s clear no one comes down here. There is dust and dirt on the floors. The plants and their vases are all still here, though the plants are long dead. There’s a smear of blood low on one wall where Tony once got into a fight, though the blood is an old, brown stain now. With the exception of the footprints where the man had been, these halls have gone untouched for a long time. 

Tony wonders about the man (and the thought of the man makes Jarvis project a complicated mix of sadness and protectiveness and anger). Wonders why he’s here. Wonders what he’s doing now. Wonders what about him has made Jarvis adopt him. ( _ You can keep him if you want, Jarv. We just have to take over first _ ), Tony thinks. 

Uncomfortableness is the only thing Tony gets from that. Odd. They’ll have to sit down and have a real conversation about it. It takes a lot of concentration to think words at each other. Emotions are easy, and intuitive, so Tony will tuck those thoughts in his back pocket for when he can lay down and not be aware of his surroundings. 

They’re making a left hand turn, and Tony remembers running down these hallways with Steve, the two of them giggling and laughing. Steve was always catching Tony up against walls and on chairs that are long gone and, in their drunker, wilder, moments, on the floor. 

_ One of these days your dalliances will get you killed _ , Bruce had said. 

_ Are you jealous? _ Tony had answered. Bruce had shut up then, because the answer was yes. That did not, however, mean he was wrong. 

Disapproval resounds through Tony’s chest at the memory, and Tony has to fight the overwhelming tide of memories that comes with the emotion. Jarvis, disapproving as he picked Tony up off the floor. Off the many floors on the many mornings (or late nights). Bruce, as he curls close to Tony, hand resting next to the Star in Tony’s chest, quietly asking him to be more careful; there are wolves, and they are everywhere. 

Tony comes back to himself in someone’s arms. He’s pressed tight to a familiar chest, cheek against breasts protected by metal and leather, breath quiet in an alcove. Jarvis is projecting a calm so strong that it sinks Tony into lassitude so deep it reminds him of the way Bruce used to do the same thing. 

After a fight, especially one that went on a long time, sometimes Tony’s muscles would lock up. Bruce would make him get into the bath, even if Tony didn’t like the water. Then he’d have Tony lay out on a towel and press oils and strength into his skin until his muscles were as suppine as a sleeping cat’s. 

Tony blinks his eyes open again, and his breathing comes to a silent stop as the Witch walks right by them. 

_ You flew too high again, Tony _ , the Bruce in his head says. _ You’ve gone too far _ . 

“James? Are you down here? Steve misses you. Come back to him,” she says. Her voice seems innocent, and she seems kind, looking for a lost friend on behalf of another. Tony doesn’t believe it for a second. 

But he holds still, and he lets the lassitude roll through him, but not drown him, and he breathes gently with Jocasta. They watch as the Witch goes the other way, the scraggly man from earlier following her like an animal too scared to disobey, but wanting to be anywhere but there. 

A sharp jolt of possessiveness flashes through Tony from Jarvis, and Tony, again, makes his promises. When this is all over, Jarvis can keep James. The man has caused Tony untold amounts of trouble, of course, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize that James hasn’t been under his own power in a long time, and whatever Steve is doing, it isn’t fixing the lost look, the open, gaping wound of a past that hasn’t been laid to rest yet. 

As the pair in the hallway leave for the far more habited upper levels, Tony and Co sneak back to the room, disappear into the sewers, and make their way far, far away. 

…

Mid Afternoon, when the sun has had ample time to kill everything insight, and will go on at maximum strength for some time yet, a dusty group of travelers spill over the lip of the Valley and down into the greenery. They trek through farmland, through grassland, through the tent villages of nomads until they reach the city

Tony and co, all of which are recognizable, keep their goggles, masks, respirators, caps, and scarves on at all times. By the end of the day, Tony has a job in the loading docks during the day, Pepper’s a runner, Jo is a cook in a soup kitchen, and Jarvis, his lovely, beautiful Jarvis, is free to roam with them all. 

…

Of course, the peace does not last. Though the group tries to keep their heads down, they are here for a mutiny, and everyone even thinking about the throne ends up at the races. The track is located in Central, a large part of the city center that houses the Palace and grounds, the Colosseum for the gladiator tournaments and, of course, the Green, a city in miniature used for various interactions between king and public. 

The cars are things of beauty, just as they were when Tony was here. The drivers are still blood thirsty. The crowd is still cheering and booing. For a moment, it is as if Tony has stepped back in time. And then his eyes alight on the throne. 

Steve, of course, sits far up in the stands. He’s well back from the track, and keeps an eye on the races with a pair of ornate galilean glasses. His hair has grown. It brushes around his jaw and against his neck at it’s longest. On his head is a red circlet with a white cluster of gems surrounding a blue stone. Anger curls in Tony’s stomach. 

Tony recognizes a bastardization of one of his designs anywhere. He had once given Steve a collar with that exact gem placement, and he would not be surprised to find that the gem’s ability to cast a forcefield for five seconds or so lives on in this new piece of jewelry. 

Leather armor protects Steve’s torso, and at his side, Tony can see a red, white, and blue shield. Tony’s gaze moves on. The witch sits next to him, in a gauzy dress and a deep red cloak that fastens to her shoulders with a large black broach with markings that Tony can’t read from here. Her hair is a wild tumble of brown and red, and her eyes are also hidden by a pair of opera glasses. 

On Steve’s other side, interesting enough, is James. 

_ He doesn’t like crowds Tony. He’s. He’s not the same and I don’t. I don’t know what to do anymore- _

Tony snaps himself away from the memory as Jarvis projects anger across Tony’s mind.  _ Soon,  _ Tony thinks back. Looking at the man, who’s practically dead inside, Tony wonders how he ever thought this pitiful creature, dragged into the light by the man who never could accept the idea that he was not the Bucky of old, deserved the full strength of Tony’s wrath. 

No, that man deserves the protection he afforded Bruce. The dedication he afforded Pepper. The kind of love he kept locked away and only gave to those he would absolutely die for, and then only because he could not help it. 

Before he can go back on his assessment (because, despite all he’s seen and done, no one second guesses Tony Stark more than Tony Stark himself), Jarvis’ raging approval drowns out the voices in his head that tell him he’s wrong. The voices are full of shit. 

Just then, the first car crosses the finish line for the last time, and Tony’s eyebrows pop up as the rest of the cars cross too. One by one, the drivers come out of their vehicles and step away from their pitstops. Most people are masked, but Tony gets an uneasy feeling when the man in the black cat suit has his helmet pointed right at him. 

…

They clash three weeks later. As expected, the man in black did, in fact, know who Tony was, despite the former king remaining masked for the entirety of his stay here in Paradise Valley. It’s Tony against the cat man (T’Challa, Tony’s learned) and their posses follow suit. 

“You come here to take over, but you know not what is coming.”

“Yeah. My revenge,” Tony grits out as he jumps backward to avoid T’Challa’s claws.

“Something more important. Something bigger.” T’Challa continues to advance, dropping down and leaping forwards. 

“Your death,” Tony pants as he ducks out of the way. 

“The Demon,” T’Challa responds.

“So the rumors are true. And if you’re here, fighting me, then you aren’t in line with Rogers. I suppose he really is unprepared,” Tony answers. As suspected, T’Challa suddenly forgets to keep attacking. 

“How did you know?”

“A rat told me. The crown is mine, and it is long past time Rogers died, so if your plan is to take the throne yourself, we can keep going. But if the plan is to defend the Valley, then we may have the workings of a beautiful partnership going on,” Tony pants out. He and T’Challa have dropped back to circling, After a moment’s hesitation, in which Tony does not attack but rather waits, T’Challa straightens up. 

“Okay, Stark, but we will not be blind sheep.” Tony gives a wane, thin smile. 

“All the good ones aren’t.” 

…

The truce is uneasy, and several fights break out between the time that Tony, Pepper, Jo, and Bruce make it back to T’Challa’s place of residence and the the two leaders cement their agreement.

Eventually, though, there is a meal the two take together. 

“My father came here to warn Captain Rogers of The Demon. He was killed for it.” Tony smiles a little bit sympathetically. A little bit sadly. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tony says. 

“I have heard that you are not wholly unfamiliar with Rogers’ character.”

“We were in bed together, once, a very long time ago. He has always been stubborn, but the more I indulged him, the worse he became.”

“Then why did you continue to aid him?” T’Challa asks. Tony notes the thread of anger in his voice, and finds it justified. If Tony had seen Steve for what he really was, none of this would have happened. 

“Because he was good at hiding it from me. By the time I realized what was happening, it was far too late.” 

T’Challa is nodding his head in agreement. He reaches for the bottle of whiskey the two are splitting and fills each of their glasses. 

“It does not have to be too late for us to make this work. So I propose a deal. I want the murderer of my father. He is the favorite of the Captain and famed assassin called the Winter Wind, and it is he who will pay the price of T’Chaka’s death.” 

The violent shot of anger and protectiveness Tony gets from Jarvis has him clamping down. They could tell T’Challa that it wasn’t the Winter Wind- James, Tony is just now realizing, but they’ll need to find out who actually did the deed. Until then, they’ll need to stall.

“The murderer is your’s,” Tony agrees. He and T’Challa shake hands over the low table, and Tony wonders how on earth he’s going to pull this off. “I want the throne, you can have the murderer, and together we’ll kill The Demon.” 

T’Challa nods. 

“My people need a home.”

“If no home can be built, you will have it here. If it can be built, you will have our aid,” Tony says. T’Challa nods, and, at Tony’s glass, T’Challa reaches out with his own. The liquid in them sloshes a little, but they don’t spill a drop.

“To the Throne,” Tony says quietly. T’Challa thinks of his own place as his people’s leader. How he carries his throne with him. 

“To the Throne.”


	8. Return the King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony goes for the throne.

They come out unified. Tony’s gang, disguised as Drifters, help him unload the car into T’Challa’s garage. The young king stands before Tony’s creation.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says. The thing is all black, sleek, low riding, beautiful. The tires are wider than normal, and, upon lifitng the hood, the engine is a model otherwise unseen on the entire continent. 

“It’s called Opus,” Tony says. T’Challa looks like he wants to touch, but refrains. 

“And this will win.”

“I will win. But this is the best tool I could possibly provide myself,” Tony answers. 

“And if you lose?”

“I will race anonymously. If I lose, I’ll remain anonymous. If I win, I'll need to watch my back. The Winter Wind is not the only assassin who eats at the king’s table,” Tony answers. He lowers the hood of the car and turns towards T’Challa. 

“You and your’s should not be recognizable. If T’Chaka was murdered by the king, then revealing yourself will put a target on you. And where you are, I am,” Tony begins.

“Then we will all be Drifters.” 

Tony nods. 

“Excellent.”

…

They slip in with the rest of the crowd, inserting themselves quietly into place all around the track. The Panthers are each paired off with a Drifter, and a small number of their group is actually down at the track to help with emergencies.

The track itself is a large, ovular affair with hidden pitfalls and pre-programmed traps surrounding a grassy expanse with a single tower in the middle. Four lookouts and a Race Master occupy the tower. Set into the center of the seats bordering the straightaway is a small stone hut with a few chairs, air conditioning, and food. That, Tony knows, is where Steve will be. 

The crowds begin to filter in at seven in the morning. The Drifters and their counterparts are already in place. The car is stored underground, in one of the entrances onto the circuit. Tony was here at four to sign himself up for the free-racing. Unlike the Annuals, or events planned for every year, free-racing doesn’t require the identity of the racer or inspection of the car, though illegal mods will invalidate the winner of said race. 

Steve Rogers himself emerges onto the roof of the covered seating at nine on the dot, and the crowd grows quiet and hushed. A microphone is in Steve’s hands as he takes a look around at the crowd. Tony sits in his car, listening to the announcements going on outside. He breathes deeply-

_ “What would you do if you didn’t have me?” He’d asked, fingers trailing up towards Tony’s nipples as soft, playful lips pressed along his neck. Lately, Steve had been taking on some duties. He was, after all, more content to speak than either Tony or Bruce, though that, like everything else, had been a farce designed to get Tony’s guard down. _

-and opens his eyes at his cue. 

“Bring the racers forth!” Tony turns the key in the ignition. The engine turns over. The low, guttural growl unique to the car echoes around the space. Tony puts the car in drive, and takes his foot off the brakes. He rolls forwards, up a shallow incline plane and out into the bright sunlight. There he is, sunlight glinting off his hair and making his blue eyes-

_ Brighter than they had a right to be. “What kind of question is that?” Tony asked, smiling as Steve played his teasing game. _

_ “A hypothetical one. Indulge me,” Steve murmured, lips sealing into place over Tony’s pulse point. “You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. Bruce isn’t any better. Sometimes I wonder if you aren’t more Starlight than human. If he isn’t more ghoul-”  _

_ Steve’s hand slides too far inward, fingers brushing the metal casing of the Star- _

“May the best-”

_ “Find someone else! I don’t need anyone watching me, and if you touch my Star again”- _

“-man-”

_ “-I will end you.”- _

“Win!” A shot goes straight up into the air. Tony puts foot to floor and accelerates to one hundred and twenty five miles and hour in twenty three seconds. 

_ -”It was a joke!”  _

_ “You know not to!” Tony spat back.  _

_ “I’m. I’m sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean it. I swear,” Steve said. He got up and wrapped his arms around Tony, whose frantically beating heart did not slow.- _

Tony takes the curve smoothly and falls into fourth place in the first lap. The last driver’s car flips when a piece of track shoots upwards underneath it’s back wheels.-

But Steve was lying then, just like he’d lied before.-

In the second lap, a spike strip kills all four tires of the new last car.

-and Tony was too blind to see it-

Four laps in of a ten-lap race, and the three middle cars get taken out by an explosion. By then, Tony has advanced to second place, making him the new middle car, with one ahead and one behind.

Plumes of fire begin to shoot upwards around all three cars, the flames dogging their steps. One explodes right in front of Tony, who jerks the wheel. The car goes into a skid, making a wide circle around the flames and just barely missing another plume. The last car gets sacked. The first car barely makes it, and they’re neck and neck on the very last lap. Tony pours on speed in the straight away, and his car has just a little more than the other one. He gains a little ground. The rising platform that sacked the first driver is coming up, so Tony tries to push the other car into it. That works enough to catch the back wheel on the platform, but doesn’t actually stop the other car. 

Tony sees it before the other driver does. A huge roll of spikes emerges from the ground. It moves horizontally, forcing them to both to go for the side that will be open. Tony can see he’ll never get around the wide side. Not with the other driver there. So instead he goes for the narrow opening on the opposite. The roll has begun to move away, but it’s still too close. Tony turns his car enough that the very front half catches on the roll, slingshotting the back half around the obstacle and he spins over the finish line just before the other guy does. 

The car will need to be realigned, but Tony knows that the important bits are all okay. The announcer is calling out the winner, and asking Tony to stand. He gets out of the car, heart in his throat. He turns towards the covered seating and pulls his helmet off. Wavy brown hair gets in his eyes, but it doesn’t stop him from reading the shocked, angry expression on Steve’s face. 

The announcer, the same one that called the races when Tony ruled, gets excited. 

“It’s the old King!”

…

“Why are you here,” Steve asks. He and Tony are in the throne room, Tony standing with T’Challa at his shoulder, disguised as his bodyguard, and Tony stands ready to fight.

“To warn you. A Titan from the North has left his home and comes for the valley.”

“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” Steve says. His shield moves a little, stance shifting into a more fight-worthy pose.

“Yeah, you did, because so far you’ve done nothing to prepare for him. He seeks Starlight, which this valley was built on. Your friends will die by Harvesting. The subjects you claimed to care about so much more than me will be slaves in the machine of The Demon’s greed and yet, you do nothing,” Tony explains. 

Steve is shaking his head before Tony’s even finished.

“The Starlight in the Valley is unaccessible. All of the readily available sources have already been tapped and drained- something you, not me, did- and it’s been that way for years. There is nothing here. He will not come.”

“He will come. The Valley is the nexus. It sits nearly dead center to the four Lands, and for millenia, Floating Islands have charted their course across its skies. To ignore the boon that taking the Valley offers would be foolhardy and unlike you, and your court,” Tony spits, the derision thick where it clings to his words, “he does not fail in creativity either! There are still deposits of Starlight here, and even if there weren’t this is a rich city, ripe for the taking, and undefended.”

“We’ve already had challengers for the throne. They didn’t get far. Neither will Thanos. And your own ascension stops here,” Steve says. In the shadows, Tony can see movement. Before he can react, there is-

_ -no one here. Gusts of wind brings more and more snow, building the piles ever higher, and it is only Anthony here. He’s all alone, with not a soul to help him or a light to guide him by. Still. His papa taught him ( _ better than the others,  _ he’d said in a tone Anthony didn’t understand), and Anthony would prove his papa right.  _

_ He kept moving, even though his little legs were not protected enough in his leggings. He had not set out alone, no, but now that papa and mama are one with the Glacius ad Regem, it was his job to take care of himself. ( _ You are different from them. You must be smarter to make up for it _ ).  _

_ So Anthony trudges on, against the biting snow. He does not let himself curl up, even though that would be warmer. To stop in a storm without proper cover is to die. He does not want to be like his papa and mama, though there is only his Uncle waiting for him. If he is lucky Obadiah will protect him from now on.  _

_ As an unmarried man with no children to his name nor a viable mentee to pass his knowledge and protection onto, Anthony could be a boon to him. Anthony is the Son of the Strange One. He, like his papa, is interested in finding the best ways to do things; a skill that has proved useful before. Anthony can be useful. He knows he already is. He only needs a chance.  _

_ They come out of the Compound slowly. The tribe circles around Anthony, watching his cold face, his runny nose, his big, teary eyes.  _

_ “What has happened?” They ask. Anthony opens his mouth to explain, but the words get caught up in the truth: his mama and papa are dead, and he is alone. When it is clear he will not speak, they take him into his family’s rooms. They light the fire, and they wrap him in more layers so that he will warm up.  _

_ Anthony endures it all, comatose.  _

_ Eventually, the words come out. The mechanical hounds his father created malfunctioned. The resulting explosion killed his father, and his mother cried for them both as she bled out in the snow. They whisper amongst themselves, and Anthony already knows what they’re saying, even if the sadness roaring in his ears is too loud to make out their exact words. They’d told papa. They’d told mama. They only got what was coming to them.  _

_ They look at him and ask after the reason for the expedition in the first place:  _

_ “And the satchel?”  _

_ Anthony tugs his coat down, shivering the whole way, and produces the bag in question. In it is a few clay vials, each longer than Tony’s hand. Tony has seen inside them. He knows they’re filled with a glowing green substance.  _

_ “Well done, my boy,” a new voice says from the doorway. The guards and elders who had surrounded him thus far turn to take in the newcomer. He’s a big man, with a big, wild beard that obscures most of his face. The rest hides underneath a heavy fur hood and a clingy beanie. His eyes sparkle out from beneath his bushy eyebrows as he ducks through the door. Obadiah, imposing giant that he is, gives Anthony hope. _

_ If he is here, he may decide to take Anthony on. _

_ “We will put you up for adoption tomorrow,” someone murmurs. A hot lump of shame, for being a burden, and fear, for being a burden that no one will take, burns through Anthony.  _

_ “There’s no need for that,” Obadiah says. His voice is easy, and musical.  _

_ “I haven’t an heir or a mentee. I will take him on.” The elders in the room look to each other and nod. Anthony knows that is all they’ll speak of it. _

_ “Very well,” They says. When they are gone. Anthony goes to look at Obadiah. The man’s eyes are big and sad where they gaze down at him. _

_ “Such a disappointment, my boy,” Obadiah says. He moves closer to Anthony, who finds himself unable to move. “That’s okay. This,” Obadiah murmurs with a tap against the star in Tony’s chest, “will more than make up for it.” Obadiah reaches in with his big hand, pushing at the chassis and making tears spring to Tony’s eyes.  _

_ When his big fingers close around the star, Tony lets out a sob of pain. How could Obadiah do this? Doesn’t Obadiah love him? _

_ “Of course not,” One of the elders says. Tony turns to see a familiar woman with long, reddish brown hair. “He never loved you. He just wanted what was useful to him. Just like all you want is what’s useful to you. Honestly, you deserve each other.” _

_ Anthony turns back to look at Obadiah, still trying to get his fingers wrapped all the way around the Star. Tony’s little knife, the one his papa told him to never leave anywhere, is in his hand before he knows it. Instead of stabbing Obadiah, Tony turns and flings the knife at Wanda. It lodges in her chest, and she screams out: _

_ “What are” _ -

\- “you doing!”

Tony blinks the memories away to see that Wanda is on the floor by the wall, sweaty, panicky, and unaware. Tony snorts. 

“Did you really think I’d fall for the same trick twice, girl?” Steve gives him a look of pure disappointment, and maybe a little hatred. Tony cocks his head.

“Rogers, I challenge you to a duel.” The hatred grows a little bit as Steve looks between him and his little attack dog. For all that she can manipulate and play with the memories of her victims, she forgets that she is just as vulnerable when she plays her games. 

“An hour.”

…

The sun beats down on them both. Tony keeps his mask on, listening to Pepper talk quietly in his ear. The Panthers, as per their agreement, had stayed to the background, keeping their movements muted and no one leaving their partners for too long. And now, it’s just him and Steve again. 

( _ I don’t trust him, Bruce said. Bruce was right. _ ) 

This time, Tony doesn’t dismiss Bruce’s eyes on him. He doesn’t pretend like Bruce is just paranoid, or like Steve would never hurt them. Because in the end, Tony did that for too long, and Bruce is the one who ended up hurt. 

So when Clint fires a round in the air (and isn’t that a jolt to see him again?) Tony does not hesitate. He strikes hard and strikes first, his own gun with modified energy pellets ringing out in the silent arena. The racing crowd is all here. While anyone can race and be guaranteed an audience with the king, few are actually inclined to fight him for the throne. 

Steve backs up, choosing to remain reserved and on the defensive for now. Tony does not let up, instead driving him towards the corner, attempting to limit his movements. Most of his hits bounce harmlessly off the shield, but Tony’s okay with that. After all, he only needs one opening. There’s a pause in the hail of bullets, and Steve uses that to his advantage. He throws the shield at Tony, who pushes the new clip into the gun and continues to fire. 

Tony hears, rather than sees, the shield coming, and he drops down, head touching the dirt as the thing wings by. That moment that Steve strikes that distinctive pose- the one where he’s catching his shield that isn’t coming directly at him, Tony shoots at his leg. It’s a testament to his years and years of shooting things that lets the bullet hit between the seam of the knee plate and shin guards. 

Steve goes down, and Tony seizes his opportunity. He runs at him, but instead of pushing back off the shield when it comes up to protect Steve, he instead uses the momentum to throw himself behind Steve. He fires more rounds, and though they bounce off Steve’s helmet, they have the benefit of dazing him. 

Steve pushes himself off the ground and away from Tony. he tries to turtle long enough to get his head on straight, but Tony isn’t having it. He runs at Steve again, and instead of jumping straight at him, Tony banks to one side, shooting up at Steve between him and the shield, and hitting the only exposed part of him: his jaw. 

The spatter of blood and bone is a sound that Tony will never forget. He loved Steve. Still loves Steve. And no agenda he could ever possess changes that. But that doesn’t mean that this right here doesn’t have to happen. Tony stands up after a moment and just takes it in: the scorch marks on Steve’s helmet from Tony’s gun, the damage to the left knee. The decimation of the face. 

Tony turns around slowly, eyes locking with Clint’s. He reaches up and retracts the helmet. The other man, once his friend, proven to be his enemy, goes still when he realizes just who Tony is. 

“No,” he says. Tony gives a wan, thin smile. 

“I’m afraid so.” 

Clint is no fool. He runs as fast as he can, back towards the castle. The crowd doesn’t stop him as he runs along the rooftops. Tony turns to take in the crowd of his new subjects. He lets a broad, fake smile paint his face. He throws his hands out to the sides, and says:

“Your king has returned.”

A voice in his ear, quiet and unassuming. 

“Tony, T’Challa has eyes on Barnes. He’s making his move,” Pepper said, and that’s too soon. It’s far too soon. 

“Stop them. Contain, don’t maim,” Tony answers. He turns and strides towards the castle, helmet firmly back in place, Jarvis’ anxiety curling in Tony’s stomach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I know it's been a long time since I updated. I've been dealing with a lot of mental health stuff recently, and my life is as busy as always between being a full time student and holding a full time job. As such I'm not going to make promises on when the next chapter will be out or when the prompt box will be open. Just know I'm working on it. Thank you for your patience
> 
> -white rabbit's clock


	9. Clean the House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony reconciles with T'Challa, and begins the work he came to do.

The halls are empty and yawning. Conversations, if there are any, echo and echo but they are never heard. Tony wanders the rooms and finds himself in the Winter Wind’s place of residence.

“You lied to me,” T’Challa says from behind him. Tony turns to him.

“I was unsure before, if it was truly the Winter Wind that killed your father. Rogers was stubborn, and it was unlikely that he would find a new man to do his dirty work if the old one would do.”

T’Challa’s eyes raise in surprise. 

“Who, then?”

“Natasha. The King’s Spider.”

“She was around long before Steve, yes?”

“But she was always conniving. When I met her, she was a poor, starved alley cat of a woman. I thought she was loyal. As it turns out, she wanted the power that came with being one of the palace. When she could go no further in my court, she encouraged Steve to break from me.”

T’Challa has stepped fully into the room now. It’s big- as lavish as any room in the palace- but it’s clear that the occupant was uncomfortable and didn’t know how to use the space. Most of the furniture has been moved out of it’s original configuration and pushed into the far corner, away from the large balcony and the doorway both. 

The bed has been stripped of its mattress. Upon wandering over to the little fortress taking up nearly a quarter of the room, Tony realizes that the mattress is laying on the floor, so that the occupant has a much more defensible sleeping position.

“And the Winter Wind?”

“An old friend of Rogers, though he did not seem to remember where he came from. Rogers was determined to find him and bring him in from the cold. It was clear he was fucked in the head and in bad need of a warm house and good food. I saw no reason to deny Rogers. But as time went on and he had no luck, I advised him to leave it be. Rogers would not hear it. 

“It seemed like every day after that he had just a little bit more to prove. He stopped coming to my bed, and turned me away from his. He shunned both myself and Bruce, as though Bruce was ever in control of the things I did. Rogers grew more secretive by the day, and though I tried to reconcile, it was like nothing was getting through to him.”

“But that alone was not enough to break what you had,” T’Challa surmised. In the doorway, Tony can see the shadow of a Panther. He doesn’t react. 

“It was not. You see, Rogers had other duties. Ones he used to be proud of taking. His absence meant that I took them on instead. I felt that his… lack of communication meant that he was no longer interested in me romantically or in the Valley at all. I made arrangements for him to be a member of the lower court and a guest in the palace. This would, essentially, give him carte blanche access to all the time he needed. 

“It was then that he revealed to me he’d been stealing Starlight from me in order to track his precious friend down.” Tony has to stop himself from telling T’Challa that the vials were leachings off the Star in his chest. “His new demotion, which was supposed to help him, actually damned him. I. I will admit that I was hurt by his distance and his secret keeping. Part of it was about distancing myself from an end that I could see written on the wall. His… theft just sealed the deal. I kicked him out of the palace. Clint went with him. 

“The next week, at the races, Steve showed up. He challenged me for the Throne, and, with it, the Starlight I had secreted away. I was still reeling, really. From the betrayal and the loss of a man who used to warm my bed. I never even suspected that, while Steve was gearing up to challenge me to a duel, Natasha was poisoning me. I got sick during the fight and lost it. I suspected that something would happen, and so encouraged Bruce to run away the previous week. 

“I was not killed, but rather taken captive while the witch, a woman who Rogers didn’t even know, combed through my head, looking for the means to cure Winter. When she didn’t find it, and when a spirit by the name of Jarvis came to my rescue, she used my own mind to destroy the connection I had with Jarvis. I was left in the dungeons until I wanted to cooperate. There, Natasha urged me to just give in. She promised me that if I did, it could all go back to normal. That we would be a family again. I refused, and later made my escape.”

“So you were the rightful king all along,” T’Challa muses. Tony nods.

“Yes, and I doubt that Winter is the assassin. It is much more likely to be Natasha,” he responds. 

“Then you may call off your people. I will leave the Winter Wind alone.” And T’Challa is gone again, as though he’d never been. Tony closes his eyes and feels the strong wave of relief from Jarvis. 

“That was kind of you,” Bruce notes from the doorway. 

“You say that as though it is a surprise,” Tony answers. 

“You didn’t used to be kind,” Bruce explains. Tony wants to snap at him. Tell him he didn’t have a choice. But he did, didn’t he? He could have been kinder to Bruce. Kinder to Pepper. Kinder to Happy. But instead his recklessness and his selfishness drove them away, while he was far too kind to Steve and Clint and Natasha.

“I suppose I’ve grown up a bit,” Tony answers. Bruce gives him a sad smile and steps further into the room.

“He lived like he would be hunted down at any moment,” Bruce notes. Tony nods his agreement.

“With Rogers interested in him, maybe he was.” A shadow flickers out of the corner of Tony’s eye, and his heart flutters.

“I will be back,” Tony says. Quietly, he walks to the door. The darting of feet away from him sets him off. Tony shoots around the doorframe and chases the runner further than most know or dare to go. Down steps and through hidden doors that not even Steve knew about. Around the large pillars that support the entire palace and down to the lower levels that he gave Jarvis supreme rule over once upon a time. 

He is stopped in his tracks when he realizes this runner has gone through the secret door and into the room with the pool. Jarvis urges him forwards, and Tony goes, taking time to quiet his breath and the frantic need to chase and capture and own and, if necessary, kill. 

There, standing in the water, is a skinny man with haunted, sunken eyes, and cheekbones that protrude too far to be healthy. Tony pauses, then lets his face soften. 

“So you’re James,” Tony says. The man nods, his matted hair hardly moving (how did Steve let him get like this?).

“I’m Anthony,” Tony introduces himself as. James takes a step away, as if he suddenly remembered something. Tony raises his hands in surrender.

“It’s okay, you know. I’m not going to chase you any longer. If you wish to stay, you can. I won’t bother you,” Tony offers. He takes a slow, measured step backwards, and James narrows his eyes in suspicion. Jarvis makes Tony feel warm, as though he approves. Tony turns away once he’s back through the door, and leaves James to his caginess. He’ll send some food down here later, and see if he can’t get James a little better fed. 

…

When Tony returns to leave food for James, Jarvis makes him feel warm inside. Tony emerges onto a lower floor balcony, and sees what looks like a beggar at the side of the palace. The sight of him makes Tony feel warm, too.

“Have… have you been collecting strays, my dear?” Tony murmurs as he watches the man slide through a hidden door that only a certain spirit could give him access too. The warmest feeling to date fills Tony from his head to his toes. 

“Well. I suppose if they’re your guests, you were probably helping them before,” Tony murmurs. “Do you want to go to them now?”

“Please,” Jarvis says. He so rarely communicates via words when bursts of emotion will do, that Tony can hardly stop himself from grinning.

“Come back around to me, yeah?”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis answers, and then he’s gone, given free rein to roam the palace once more. Tony smiles. At least he’s learned to acquiesce. Bruce would be so proud of him. 

…

“Jo, my dear, I have an assignment for you,” Tony says. Jo raises her eyes. It’s been many a year since Boss-Man gave her a nudge, never mind a real assignment. She finds herself curious. 

“My original Spirit, Jarvis, has free reign of the halls. But I need someone outside it. Find me information, find me fighters. Find me what can defend this city and bring them here,” Tony commands. Jocasta’s eyes light up Starlight blue. She takes a short bow, skirt swishing around her knees, and turns to depart. 

“As you wish.”

And find Jocasta does. While Tony meets every day with the leaders of gangs and the owners of businesses, explaining to each one the task at hand, Jocasta finds him more strays, and she brings them back. One by one, Jarvis takes them as his own, and the ranks begin to grow. Deep in the depths, Bucky begins to gain weight. 

There is excavation again, to reactivate plans for an underground shelter as people dig down in their own little portion to meet others and provide a safe place for their children to run when the blood begins to flow like wine through the streets. 

Tony takes a trip out to the city’s edge and kneels with his hands in the dirt while the clouds roll in and thunder roars overhead. Jarvis is pinging him packets of happy signals as he reconnects with people Jocasta brings him. A sorcerer with hands that don’t work anymore. A girl who kills people just by touching them. A man with metal in his skeleton. One by one, the strays that Jarvis has collected over the years come to the palace. One by one, they are coaxed out of the depths by him, and greeted by Paradise Valley’s old king. 

There is a banquet to speak to the Valley’s satellite cities, and enact the same protections there he built for the main hub. Spires capable of creating a net of energy around the perimeter of the cities go up in record time, and Tony gains ever more strays. They are grateful that Jarvis found them. Surprised and loyal at Tony, for letting them stay and, in the case of some, manufacturing workarounds for their disabilities. 

By the time The Demon arrives, Tony will be ready. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long. Life took me for a ride and it was a rough one. I've got no definite update schedule for you all, but know that this fic is finished.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.
> 
> If you guys would like me to write something for you, head on over to the Prompt box and drop me a comment there :)


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